Ag News

GFB YF&R Committee collecting change for Georgia food banks

If you’ve got some change in your pockets going jing-a-ling-a-ling, stop by your county Farm Bureau office between now and July 16 to donate it to “A Calf’s Weight in Change” to benefit the Georgia Food Bank Association (GFBA).

The Georgia Farm Bureau Young Farmer & Rancher Committee is asking Farm Bureau members and ag supporters to dig deep to help each county collect a calf’s weight in loose change, estimated to be 65 pounds of coins. The Farm Bureau Bank has pledged to match all donations collected.

“Pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters or silver dollars, we’ll take it all to raise money for the Georgia Food Bank Association,” said GFB YF&R Committee Chairman Dustin Covington. “With the generous match Farm Bureau Bank has offered, this is a terrific opportunity for the Farm Bureau family to change hunger in Georgia by donating their loose change.”

County Farm Bureaus with YF&R members attending the 2018 GFB YF&R Summer Leadership Conference will send the change they’ve collected with their delegation to the conference. During the conference kickoff cookout on July 19, the GFB YF&R Committee and GFBA representatives will weigh and count the loose change each county Farm Bureau sends. Counties that don’t have members attending the conference will weigh and count their collected change on July 16 and email their info to yf@gfb.org that day. These donations will be shared and added to the coin count at the conference.

Grand prizes will be awarded for the county with the most amount of change donated, the GFB District with the most amount of change donated, the county with most weight in change donated and the GFB District with most weight in change donated.

The GFBA consists of eight regional food banks across Georgia that work with more than 2,000 partner agencies and food pantries to distribute about 130 million pounds of food annually in Georgia. GFBA food banks include: America’s Second Harvest of Coastal Georgia in Savannah, the Atlanta Community Food Bank, the Chattanooga Area Food Bank (Food Bank of Northwest Georgia), Feeding the Valley in Columbus, the Food Bank of Northeast Georgia in Athens, Golden Harvest in Augusta, the Middle Georgia Community Food Bank in Macon and Second Harvest of South Georgia in Valdosta.